“The Alt-Right’s Threat to Democracy (and What We Can Do to Counter it)” with Dr. Tanner Mirrlees

In just one month after Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential win, there were more than 1,000 hate crime incidents in North America. In 2018, right wing extremists linked to the “alt-right” killed at least 40 people. This talk considers how democracy is threatened by the rise of the “alt-right,” and probes how the Internet and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may be used to both empower and challenge this hate group’s influence. What is the alt-right and what can we do to secure ourselves against and counter the alt-right’s threat to democracy?

Dr. Tanner Mirrlees is an Associate Professor in the Communication and Digital Media Studies program at Ontario Tech University, the vice president of the Canadian Communication Association (CCA), and a steering committee member for The Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism. He is the author of EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating, and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age (2019), Hearts and Mines: The US Empire’s Culture Industry (2016), and Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization (2013).